What is a Maven artifact?

java build maven
Maxim Veksler picture Maxim Veksler · Mar 21, 2010 · Viewed 203.6k times · Source

What is an artifact and why does Maven need it?

Answer

Stuart Sierra picture Stuart Sierra · Mar 21, 2010

An artifact is a file, usually a JAR, that gets deployed to a Maven repository.

A Maven build produces one or more artifacts, such as a compiled JAR and a "sources" JAR.

Each artifact has a group ID (usually a reversed domain name, like com.example.foo), an artifact ID (just a name), and a version string. The three together uniquely identify the artifact.

A project's dependencies are specified as artifacts.

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